America Quietly Ducking Out of War It Claims to Love

More evidence that the support for the war, which has already dropped to a
minority position in polls, is shallow.
Historian Chris Bray:

I’ve been struck — struck forcefully, for the obvious reasons — by reports
that the U.S. Army
is currently flailing miserably behind a growing failure to recruit new
soldiers. Most seriously, an army deeply entangled in a grinding and
persistent conflict is having very little success at recruiting combat
troops. “As of the end of March, 7,800
infantry soldiers had been trained at Fort Benning, compared with a target of
25,541 for fiscal 2005.” (Fiscal
2005, if I’m not mistaken, ends [on September 30].) These are stunning numbers.…

I very much hesitate to use the phrase historically unprecedented, and I look
forward to hearing arguments against, but it seems like this might be a good
time to think about using it. The
U.S. military
projects force around a world in which its power is unmatched; a parallel
army of chest-thumping, war-hungry bloggers and columnists celebrate American
power; and Fort Benning can’t keep its drill sergeants busy.

…When historians look back at 2005, I suspect
that some will make a great deal out of a war that was widely supported and
widely avoided. We can draw the picture of an entire culture, living soft and
talking hard. Everyone wants to eat, but nobody wants to cook.

U.S. Navy sailor
Pablo Paredes decided not to go when his ship left port
last December. He recently went on trial in
military court. Here are some excerpts from
his
statement to the judge last week:

I am convinced that the current war in Iraq is illegal. I am also convinced
that the true causality for it lacked any high ground in the topography of
morality. I believe as a member of the Armed Forces, beyond having duty to my
Chain of Command and my President, I have a higher duty to my conscience and
to the supreme law of the land. Both of these higher duties dictate that I
must not participate in any way, hands-on or indirect, in the current
aggression that has been unleashed on Iraq. In the past few months I have
been continually asked if I regret my decision to refuse to board my ship and
to do so publicly. I have spent hour upon hour reflecting on my decision, and
I can tell you with every fiber of certitude that I possess that I feel in my
heart I did the right thing.…

I understood… what the precedent was for service members participating in
illegal wars. I read extensively on the arguments and results of Nazi German
soldiers, as well as imperial Japanese soldiers, in the Nuremberg and Tokyo
Trials, respectively. In all I read I came to an overwhelming conclusion
supported by countless examples that any soldier who knowingly participates
in an illegal war can find no haven in the fact that they were following
orders, in the eyes of international law.

Nazi aggression and imperialist Japan are very charged moments of history and
simply mentioning them evokes many emotions and reminds of many atrocities.
So I want to be very clear that I am in no way comparing our current
government to any of the historical counterparts. I am not comparing the
leaders or their acts, not their militaries nor their acts. I am only citing
the trials because they are the best example of judicial precedent for what a
soldier/sailor is expected to do when faced with the decision to participate
or refuse to participate in what he perceives is an illegal war.

I think we would all agree that a service member must not participate in
random unprovoked illegitimate violence simply because he is ordered to. What
I submit to you and the court is that I am convinced that the current war is
exactly that. So, if there’s anything I could be guilty of, it is my beliefs.
I am guilty of believing this war is illegal. I’m guilty of believing war in
all forms is immoral and useless, and I am guilty of believing that as a
service member I have a duty to refuse to participate in this war because it
is illegal.

The judge agreed… both that he was guilty, and, apparently, that Paredes had
reasonable cause to believe that the war in Iraq was an illegal one.

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